


Starlight on a Christmas tree (you light me up like)

by Self_conscious_mess



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Christmas fic, Christmas traditions, First Kiss, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Mistletoe, Pack Dad Derek Hale, Pack Family, Pack House (Teen Wolf), Pack Mom Stiles Stilinski, Pining, Rated M for swearing and Liam's dirty thoughts, Side developing Sterek, Side established Morey but blink and you'll miss it, idiots to lovers, in January yes indeed, the smallest bit of angst, you know where this is going
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:07:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28860807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Self_conscious_mess/pseuds/Self_conscious_mess
Summary: Stiles wants the pack to experience a proper Christmas together. Cue a flurry of traditions, bonding activities and mistletoe. Liam's just along for the ride, but he might get more out of it than he originally expected.Or 4k of ridiculous Thiam fluff
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Comments: 11
Kudos: 82





	Starlight on a Christmas tree (you light me up like)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aigafyuin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aigafyuin/gifts).



> Me, posting a Christmas fic in late January? It's more likely than you think!  
> This was supposed to be a Christmas gift for aigafyuin, who gave me the prompt (which might come from tumblr, no idea sorry), but I fell behind on schedule. Anyway, it's here now! Merry belated Christmas aiga, hope you like your present!  
> It's been a while since I've wrote for Thiam so I hope I've not completely butchered them :')  
> Happy reading to everyone!

Twenty-four days to go before Christmas and Stiles bullied Derek into putting up fairy lights all over the pack house’s facade.

Liam watched from afar, badly concealing his amusement, as Derek said “No, Stiles” and Stiles batted his lashes and said “Yes, Stiles” and Derek growled an “I said no.”

An hour later, multicoloured lights adorned the whole structure of the porch, blinking reindeers were perched on the ridge of the roof and cascading white lights covered the gable end of the house.

Liam had been much less amused when he had been requisitioned to help, along with Theo and Scott. Well, at least he’d been able to pester Theo with Scott’s assistance, which was always a win in his book, and had gotten pretty neat photos of an exasperated chimera covered in heaps of twinkling lights.

***

Twenty days to go before Christmas and Malia, Lydia and Corey came back with the biggest fir tree Liam had ever seen.

It wouldn’t get through the front door, so they carried it to the other side of the house and opened up the huge picture window Stiles had suggested when Derek was still making the house’s plans. Once inside, the tree took up half the space of the living room and easily reached the ceiling.

Isaac made the mistake of expressing his doubts about it with a delicate “What the fuck is that thing?”, but Malia growled, and Lydia arched an unimpressed eyebrow and made a show of looking down at the axe she was still holding up, so Isaac went to hide behind Scott, and Derek said “The tree stays, I guess,” with all the resignation of a tired pack dad.

Stiles had looked so proud of the tree he had sent for that Liam couldn’t help but feel okay with the lack of place, even if it meant that he and Theo would no longer be able to play VR in the living room – until the thing went away or they found another room with enough space, of course.

***

Eighteen days to go before Christmas and the whole pack had the express order to _be here, or else_.

It was official decorating day, and Stiles was all over the place with excitement and holidays-jitters. Liam and Mason spent fifteen minutes messing with the Christmas playlist by taking over the Bluetooth speaker before they had to stop and ‘do something productive’ lest they face Derek’s wrath.

Derek’s scowl would have probably been more effective if the werewolf hadn’t been wearing a ridiculous Santa sweater, but the sight of Stiles, standing right behind Derek and looking dejected over his playlist being messed with, had been effective enough. Damn Stiles and his guilt-tripping techniques! It _always_ worked.

Mason went to help Corey and Isaac adorn the tree with an outrageous amount of ornaments, and Liam decided that he was going to badger Theo and make him come out of his hiding to make sure the chimera wouldn’t escape the chore – if the whole pack had to suffer then Theo had to as well, he was pack after all, so it was just logic.

In the end, after a “No, fuck off, Li”, a whiny “But I don’t want to, little wolf” and a pout that made Liam wonder if he had eaten something weird at lunch, because his stomach felt weird at the sight of it, Liam succeeded in getting Theo out of the linen cupboard. Together they hung up tinsels on the apparent beams of the house, Liam directing from beneath, holding up the pins and garlands to Theo, who was perched up on a small portable ladder.

Each time they moved on to another beam, Liam would just pick up the ladder with Theo still on it and move them both to the next location. And each time Theo reached up to pin something to the wooden rafters, Liam would do his very best not to stare too much at the sliver of skin which showed where the chimera’s shirt was riding up, or at Theo’s ass, which was _right there_ , so Liam definitely deserved a reward, thank you very much.

***

Thirteen days to go and Derek learned that Liam still hadn’t found the gifts for most of the pack and his family.

So of course, Stiles appeared at the Dunbar-Geller’s house the morning after – _way_ too early in the morning for Liam’s sanity, if anyone cared – and took him shopping.

How the alpha and the spark still hadn’t realized that they were an old-married couple already, telling each other everything and basically acting as the pack’s parents, was out of Liam’s comprehending range.

He had tried to ask Theo about it once, seeing as the chimera and Derek were Tuesday nights’ buddies, but Theo had only shrugged and said “There’s a lot of self-worth issues to unpack there,” and had then proceeded to zone out on Liam for a good ten minutes. So yeah, not repeating that mistake. It had costed Liam a win in Halo 4 as well as being ignored – and both were equally scandalous.

That was how Liam had found himself gnawing at his lips and racking his brain for an idea while Stiles was nervously tapping his feet on the concrete. They had decided to take a break on a bench after two hours – mostly for Stiles’s sake, because for some obscure reason, he had decided that he was going to be the one carrying all the bags even though Liam was the one with the superhuman strength.

He had also bought Liam a waffle as a reward for waking up early and finding all the gifts he needed, and Liam already knew that he was going to brag about it to Isaac later – the werewolf had the _worst_ sweet tooth of the whole pack. Well, not exactly finding _all_ the gifts he needed. There was one that he still had too find after all.

“Come on Liam,” Stiles groaned, “you guys live under the same roof. You’re attached at the hip almost 24/7. It shouldn’t be that hard.”

“What, like you didn’t spend _a whole week_ finding the perfect gift for Derek??” Liam retorted, a bit snidely, even though the annoyance he was feeling was really directed at himself for coming up with nothing.

Stiles blushed furiously, like he always did when someone pointed out his obvious crush on the alpha, but then did a double take and looked at Liam, his brows furrowed.

“Are you implying that my situation with Derek equals yours with Theo?”

Liam stared blankly at Stiles’s growing little smirk for a second before he understood the implication he had brought upon himself. God, what an idiot.

He spluttered, blood rushing to his cheeks.

“What?? No, of course not, that wasn’t what I meant, what the fuck Stiles.”

Stiles let out a giggle, but didn’t push it.

“Okay, Liam, whatever you say.”

A moment of silence passed, only punctuated by Stiles’s fidgeting and his hands rubbing against each other to ward off the cold. Eventually, the human spoke up.

“What helped me for Derek was to think of what I wanted to say to him, you know? What kind of message I wanted him to receive.”

Liam nodded distractedly. Five minutes later, he knew what he had to get.

***

Nine days to go before Christmas and the whole pack was having an eggnog-and-Christmas-cookies day.

It really started when they went to get groceries in the early afternoon, invading the local shop in a matter of minutes.

Derek smiled apologetically at the cashier as they entered, but the woman only looked at him with the resignation of someone who had been handling a lot of shit for a lot of time. Stiles, grocery list and pen in hand, split the pack in groups and gave each team their own mission.

All in all it was a short affair, and Liam and Corey even managed to sneak some of their favourite treats in the cart as well, making puppy eyes at Derek, who was very weak and always indulged the betas after making sure that Stiles wasn’t looking.

The rest of the afternoon was spent alternating between baking and binging on cookies and eggnog. As the hours went on, the cookies became less and less as the recipe intended and more and more as if the ingredients had been thrown haphazardly in, with absolutely no respect for the proportions whatsoever. It was the most fun Liam had had with the whole pack in a long time, and judging from the dopey smiles of everyone, the sentiment was widely shared.

Liam wasn’t sure he had seen Derek smile that much in like, ever. And Theo had _giggled_ at some point. Which, what the fuck.

It had made Liam want to squeeze him to death, like one of those strange impulsions people had when they saw something too cute to handle. Which, once more, what the fuck.

Theo wasn’t even _cute_. Or well, he could be actually, if Liam thought about it. In the morning, when Liam tried to wake him up and Theo was all sleepy and tried to half-heartedly swat at him to make him go away, but the gesture was too weak to even move the covers. And also when he wore that comfy pink sweater of his. That was sort of adorable.

Liam frowned. He tried to think about aggressively throttling Theo like he sometimes did when the jackass hid the remote to annoy him, but the thought completely drifted and he found himself imagining pining Theo to the wall and pulling on his hair and in Liam’s vision Theo would keen a little and _aaaaaaaah_ _okay stop right here Liam_ _stop right_ _fucking_ _here._

Liam sighed and tried to conceal his wistful expression in his mug of eggnog when Corey looked at him questioningly. Although he tried to deny it, Liam was more and more aware that he kind of wanted to aggressively make out with a certain green-eyed chimera.

***

Five days to go before Christmas and Stiles was having a breakdown because Lydia had made the flippant remark that he had forgotten the one and only tradition of hanging up mistletoe.

Stiles fretted about how he had failed in giving the pack the proper Christmas they deserved until Isaac rolled his eyes and said “Relax, _mom_ , we’re gonna salvage this”. Stiles squawked at the title and even more at the lack of disagreement from the rest of the pack present at that moment, and was left spluttering in the house while Isaac, Scott, Malia and Lydia went out to right the situation.

When Theo dropped Liam at the pack house before speeding up to catch his shift at the bar, Liam found himself reluctantly involved in the mistletoe-hanging process. Which turned out to be an even more harrowing experience when his packmates decided that teasing Liam was a vital element of the affair. Apparently, Liam’s pathetic crush on Theo was now public knowledge, and thus eligible to pestering.

At least Scott was trying to be supportive and give him a pep-talk so that he’d ask Theo out – which Liam would never do because he liked his nose not crooked, thank you very much, but still, it was nice of him. Isaac, on the other hand, was being the jackass he secretly wasn’t and mocking Liam for being “the dumbest wolf alive”. It got worse when Corey and Mason dropped by the house to say hi but decided to stay and join in on the fun.

“Seriously, Liam, just ask him out already, I can’t hear you whine about him any longer,” Mason complained.

“I don’t whine about Theo!” Liam whined, fittingly, and he scowled at Corey when he heard the chimera mutter “You kinda do, man” under his breath.

“Ask him out and then you’ll have something better to do with your energy than being an aggressive puppy,” Malia snarked with a suggestive leer, ignoring Scott’s warning look.

“I’ll show you aggressive,” Liam growled, but didn’t actually act on the impulse, because he and Theo _had_ been working on that issue, and he _had_ improved, okay? Theo had even said that he could be proud of his progress.

“Calm down, you heathens,” Lydia piped up from where she was pinning a sprig of mistletoe above the door to the living room. She was partly turning her back to them, but Liam thought he saw a small smirk gracing her lips before she added “You shouldn’t say this kind of things to Liam anyway. Not when Theo’ll be coming over soon.” She turned towards them and sniffed, mock-disdainfully. “I for one don’t want to witness Liam drooling over Theo for the rest of the night because he can’t stop thinking about what you guys suggested.”

And then, with a flick of her long strawberry hair, she turned around and walked out of the room, leaving a bright red Liam and five bad, bad friends with new ammunition in her wake.

“Don’t you dare,” Liam snarled when Isaac opened his mouth, but Mason was the real traitor.

Liam’s best friend let out a chuckle and said, his eyes full of mirth:

“Actually, that might be a good way to finally make it obvious enough for Theo to notice that you want to fu- mphf!”

Liam jumped to slap his hand on his best friend’s mouth. He got his hand licked for his troubles, but it was still worth it. He was about to threaten his packmates with violence if they said anything further, but the untimely arrival of Theo prevented him from doing just that.

Theo walked in the living room and raised an eyebrow at the way everyone looked at him, Liam making a pretty good impersonation of a deer caught in headlights while still silencing Mason, but the chimera fortunately did not comment.

“Hi T,” Liam said, and told himself he had _not_ sounded squeaky. He cleared his throat before carrying on, just in case. “How was your shift?”

Mason let out a muffled laugh from under his hand, and Liam mystifyingly felt his cheeks heat up.

“Good,” Theo answered with a small amused smile. “Everything alright, little wolf?”

Liam released his back-stabber of a best friend and straightened like nothing was happening. “Yep, of course, yeppy yep.”

Theo’s second eyebrow joined the other up close to his hairline, and fuck Liam wanted to kiss him so hard, but the subject was thankfully dropped.

The whole pack hung out for the rest of the afternoon and evening, and it. Was. Hell.

Isaac and Mason would just _not_ stop waggling their eyebrows in the background each time he was talking to Theo, and after a while they advanced to making obnoxious smooching noises when they walked close to Liam.

Not only that, but Corey appeared at his side at some point to innocently draw Liam’s attention to Theo’s outfit. Which was very, very unfair, because after that, Liam could no longer ignore that Theo’s dark jeans looked painted on and did a tremendous job for his ass. And what kind of shirt was the chimera wearing exactly?? It seemed kinda too short, and showed way too much skin for Liam’s sanity.

Liam’s thoughts were getting increasingly dirty, and he regularly had to keep himself in check so he wouldn’t betray his mind through stupid chemosignals.

It didn’t help that Theo was apparently in a teasing mood himself, riling up Liam at every turn and challenging him on every stupid thing – “Bet you can’t beat me at Rainbow Road”, which, spoiler alert, Liam could not, “You really think you should eat that much cake?”, which made Liam take a third slice of Stiles’ babka, “Pretty sure I’d beat you in a race, Li, you got short legs,” which had Theo almost yeeted out of the living room’s picture window.

Liam had just gone to the bathroom to splash some water on his face and give himself a stern talking to – “stop staring at Theo’s ass, goddammit Liam” – and was on his way back when it happened.

He and Theo bumped into each other just as Liam was entering the living room, and almost immediately, as if he had been waiting for this exact moment, Malia cleared his throat, gave a shit-eating grin to the two boys that turned towards her, and gestured pointedly to the space over their heads.

Everyone in the room fell silent, observing the scene. Traitors, all of them.

Liam closed his eyes, eyebrows and nose scrunched up. He already knew what he was going to find up there. There was no escaping it.

He risked his eyes open, and yeah, sure. There it was. That cheeky sprig of mistletoe, mocking him with its stupid leaves and even stupider berries.

Liam looked down, fully expecting the trademark smirk that Theo was sporting.

“Yeah right!” Theo said, his challenging eyes and tone grating on Liam’s already frayed nerves. ‘As if you were gonna respect the tradition and kiss me.”

And it might have been the whole evening’s teasing, or maybe the fact that this, this thing between them, had been building up for months, but Liam’s blood was burning, and he just stopped thinking – which was the only possible explanation for what he did.

“I’ll fucking finish you off under the mistletoe, you brat,” Liam bit out, angry and frustrated, before he pushed Theo up against the doorjamb and kissed him silly.

Gasps and catcalls from the pack resonated in the background, but Liam couldn’t care less. He took advantage of Theo’s surprise to pry his slack mouth open and take him apart with his lips and tongue.

Liam slipped his hand under the chimera’s shirt, stroking and feeling the muscles fluttering under his touch. With the way they were pressed up together, Liam could _feel_ the shiver as it ran through Theo’s whole body, and he swallowed Theo’s soft moan of need with his own eager mouth.

When they pulled apart for air, Liam forced himself to take a step back, senses in overdrive and eyes bright gold. Possessiveness flared sharply through him at the sight of Theo’s swollen red lips and dazed eyes, confident smirk long gone. The intolerable thought that other people could currently see his mate in such a vulnerable state suddenly popped into Liam’s brain, and in spite of what he had claimed before kissing the chimera, he actually had _no_ intentions of letting anyone see that. The very idea had a low growl escaping his lips as he turned to the living room’s other occupants.

Unfortunately, one could not posture when one was in a room full of other werewolves – and could even less when one’s alpha was around. Liam’s slip of control was answered by other growls and flashing eyes before the nonsense was cut off by an exasperated Stiles.

“Stop it, all of you! Derek, keep your puppies in check, or help me God,” the human intervened, rolling his eyes for good measure. “And Liam, please refrain from mauling Theo in front of everyone else. Let’s keep it PG-13 when the whole pack’s around, okay?”

The stern reprimand had the desired effect, the supernatural part of the pact looking chastised alright. For Liam, however, it was as if a bucket of iced water had been poured over his head.

What on earth had come over him??? Theo was probably disgusted with him right now. Or at least very embarrassed – who in their right mind jumped their friend in front of a room full of their other friends??? And from where were those silly thoughts of ‘mate’ coming?? Liam really needed to get a grip.

He mumbled an ashamed “sorry” to a still very obviously flustered Theo, and then proceeded to avoid any kind of interaction with the chimera for the rest of the evening. Luckily, the pack no longer seemed intent on making Liam’s life a living hell, and Stiles took upon himself to manoeuvre the discussion towards safe topics for the reminder of their time there.

Safe to say that the drive back to the Dunbar-Geller household, however, was very awkward™.

***

It was Christmas’ day and things had pretty much returned to a state of normalcy, to Liam’s great relief. Or well, as much as things could be normal when you kissed your crush in front of everyone and then decided to act as if nothing had happened.

Theo was still an arrogant prick whenever he beat Liam at video games, and Liam still whined when Theo took too much time cooking them breakfast. And yet, there were moments when Liam caught himself glancing at Theo – which he already did before, but only a healthy amount, mind you – only to find Theo already staring at him or, in a few memorable occasions, at his lips. In those moments, Liam couldn’t help the small flicker of hope that alighted in his chest.

They were back at the pack house to exchange presents, and Liam felt inexplicably anxious. Well, not so inexplicably. He had no idea how Theo was gonna react to his gift, for starters. And they had not seen the pack since that infamous day, soooo. Yeah. Anxiety it was.

But the atmosphere wasn’t tense, everyone acting as usual – with admittedly more excitement than on a normal day. Liam was watching Mason and Corey’s pleased expressions at Isaac’s squeal of joy over the Hufflepuff scarf they had gotten him when he saw Theo pick up his present out of the corner of his eye.

Liam froze, watching as discreetly as he could while Theo began tearing it open, making quick work of the hideous wrapping paper Liam had found as a joke. He watched as it was Theo’s turn to freeze, looking dumbstruck at the array of Final Fantasy figurines, at the two rolled up posters and at the small potted plant that the box contained.

Liam crept closer and knelt beside the chimera. Brought out of his trance by the werewolf’s sudden presence, Theo looked up at him, brows furrowed.

“What…?”

“It’s for you to start decorating your room,” Liam explained, feeling heat rise up to his cheeks. “To start feeling at home.”

Theo made a strangled sound, and Liam frowned.

“Are you alright? I’m sorry if you don’t like it, I-”

“No, Liam,” Theo cut him off. “It’s perfect, I love it.”

A second of silence passed before the chimera spoke up again.

“But Li, a plant? How am I supposed to take care of a plant?”

“I researched it and you just have to like water it every day and-”

“I know what I need to do to keep a plant alive, Liam,” Theo interrupted him again, rolling his eyes. “What I mean is…”

The chimera floundered for a few seconds, but Liam understood what the other boy was trying to say. What about the days when the nightmares had plagued his nights, the days when he didn’t even feel like taking care of himself?

Liam shrugged, trying to play it off nonchalantly.

“Then I’ll be here to water it for you.”

Their eyes met, and Liam refrained from making any remarks about the fact that Theo’s were slightly damp, and then Theo was leaning in, and Liam forgot to breathe as the chimera brought their lips together.

It was soft and gentle, a simple press of lips, but Liam’s heart was ready to blow out of his chest.

When they drew back, there was an almost shy expression on Theo’s features that Liam had never seen before.

“Here,” the chimera said, pushing an envelope in Liam’s hands. “Merry Christmas.”

Liam looked down at the deep green paper of the envelope – he might have said to Theo, once, that green was his favourite colour, when really what he had meant was that Theo’s eyes were of the prettiest shade he had ever seen – and opened it. Inside were two tickets for the Ancient Greece exposition Liam had been prattling about for months. It had sold out at the beginning of the month though, which meant…

“I thought we might, you know, go together,” Theo mumbled, his voice sounding the smallest bit embarrassed, and Liam looked up with a bright smile.

“It’s a date, then.”

Theo nodded, a small smile playing on his lips, and Liam was about to kiss him again when shouts broke the bubble they had been immersed in.

“Emergency! Evacuate the house!”

Scott, Isaac and Malia were frantically urging everyone out, eyes wild and terrified. Liam and Theo stood up, worried.

“What’s going on??” Liam exclaimed.

“Stiles and Derek have finally pulled their heads out of their asses,” Lydia answered placidly while putting on her coat. “And apparently moving up to one of the soundproof bedrooms is too much to ask of them,” she sighed before opening the door and walking out, closely followed by Scott and Malia.

“I don’t wanna hear my parents have sex,” Isaac whined, pulling Mason and Corey with him out of the house.

Liam and Theo exchanged a look, their eyes going wide as they heard the first moans coming from the kitchen.

“Oh fuck no,” Theo bit out, and Liam nodded wildly in approval.

“We’re out,” Liam said, and he reached down to grab Theo’s hand before they ran out of the house together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I would love to hear your thoughts.  
> Take care and stay safe <3


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